Is It Possible for Speech to Ever Be Too Free?

"For autocrats, to be sure, free speech is perilous. It enables subjects to criticize their authority, associate with like-minded others to build an opposition, protest in the streets, and advocate for regime change. For adherents of the status quo, free speech is threatening because it permits critics to press for change. For those with power, it is disturbing because it empowers those without."

"But for Dabhoiwala, what is most dangerous about free speech is that, at least in the United States, it is too free. Speech, he argues in his wide-ranging intellectual history of the idea, can hurt people, enable disinformation and lies, serve greed, appeal to our basest instincts, and shore up the powerful. Spanning many centuries and multiple continents, What Is Free Speech? offers a revisionist history of freedom of speech, demonstrating that, too often, it has been only partially realized."

"But his book is also a deeply polemical work, one driven by his concern about what he views as the dangers of free speech to progressive interests, especially in the United States. In Dabhoiwala's account, the First Amendment ignores the harms that speech inflicts. It affords the wealthy disproportionate ability to shape public debate. It protects hate speech, which denies equal status to members of minority groups. It privileges individualist notions of liberty over the collectiv"

Free speech enables criticism of authority, association among like-minded people, street protest, and advocacy for regime change. It threatens autocrats, religious fundamentalists, and defenders of the status quo by empowering those without power. Speech can also harm people, enable disinformation and lies, serve greed, appeal to baser instincts, and reinforce existing power structures. U.S. First Amendment protections often prioritize individual liberty and, in practice, can ignore the harms that speech inflicts, protect hate speech that denies equal status to minority groups, and afford the wealthy disproportionate ability to shape public debate. The net result is a partially realized freedom of speech with significant political consequences.

Read at The Nation